Alchemy update

The patch had its toll. Aosoth's server was down "and we cannot offer a date of being online at the time". However on Thursday we could meet and see the results.

Many things turned upside down by the patch:

• low level stuff stalled as no one bothers his alts
• flask are free-falling as people go to 5-mans and not raids
• Skyflare and earthsiege diamonds sell like candy, mostly to JC-s, who just noticed that they need 450 skill to cut epic gems
• The new hot seller is obviously epic gem transformation, and a must be for every alchemist, but I assume you found it out without my help.
• healing and mana potions are up, since people are back and even M&S have heal pots.
• We found some items that normally (not now) sell well: Elixir of mighty mageblood, Elixir of mighty strenght, Elixir of fortitude, Strong troll's blood elixir, Lesser flask of toughness
• The stuff listed "less known" in the previous post sold nicely before the patch (and probably after the craziness ends)
  

Aosoth managed to collect 1500G cash and the invested stuff.

PS: if you are still not on transmute spec, respec. 2x on an epic gem means 200G free income.

Does being kid matters?

Robin Torres wrote about children playing wow: "what about the innocent little ones who spam duels or ask for quest help or beg for money, because they don't know any better, and get lambasted by perfectly nice players who don't know they are talking to children instead of grown funsuckers?"

She, and lot of others warn that many of my "M&S" are kids or otherwise disabled people who are not responsible for being useless.

Well, I don't care. Everyone is responsible for his actions or someone else is lawfully responsible. Every kid has a parent who must take care of him and take responsibility for his actions. I don't care if the M&S I /ignore for spamming group invite is a 10 years old kid, or a grown loser. He spammed me, I ignored him. If I hurt the feelings of a kid, too bad. If he runs to mummy crying, maybe "mummy" notice that she has a child to nurture.

Let's put it straight: if you let your small (less than 14) child play in a competitive environment with adults without constant supervision, and he gets hurt by other players because of his incompetence, you suck at being parent. These kids should not be here. If we help them level up, we just make them stay at the cost of our own time.

The larger kids on the other hand should learn that nothing is for free, no one will tolerate them being noobs. Learn and be better! Stand on your own feet! That's what he must learn and we can teach him this simpy by refusing boosting and take advantage on their dumbness. For example the best time to farm honor is Saturday-Sunday late morning-afternoon. It's weird. I just go there and grind like they were some lvl75 mobs (of course I still go for win, just grind them around objectives).

However I also got an idea about spamming duels. I posted a suggestion on the EU forum to add an "ignore player" button to group invite, duel, trade, sign guild charter interfaces to get rid of these annoying pests. Please support this suggestion.

If you make a clone on the US forum, write the link in comment and I insert it here so US players can also support it.

PS: Olga has a point in comment that it's better if the kid is exposed to the "bad" world in the game than in real life, as no physical damage can be received. Maybe it's true, especially if the the parent is available to answer the kid's questions "why do they kick me from raid and tell I suck with 1200 DPS?". However it has no obligation for us. We don't have to be nice with the kid, especially since we are the "bad world" he has to learn about.

Weapons and morons

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Alchemy

The winner of the next apprentice program is Aosoth. While I'm 99.9% sure he is a guy, since the character is a girl, "she" is appropriate. This character was power-leveled to fill a hole on the guild's roster consuming previous founds. As a preparation, I overlooked the alchemy recipes and listed those which seems to be useful for other people. Be advised, "useful" does not surely mean sellable.

Obvious stuff are used by every raider, and crafted by every living alchemist. They are usually at a low profit rate, or even below material cost (since many alchemists are herbalists and materials farmed by them is "free" according to the M&S lore):

• Runic healing potion
• Runic mana potion
• Flask of endless rage
• Flask of pure mojo
• Flask of stoneblood
• Flask of the frost wyrm
• Flask of lesser resistance
  

Other things are less known, but pretty useful and deserve observation in the AH:

• Fel mana potion, since, unlike most mana sources, it works on Vezzax hard mode, recipe is rare drop
  
• Frost oil, needed for quest, recipe sold by vendor
  
• Swiftness potion, used by many BG fighters, recipe in AH
  
• Elixir of water walking, loved by those who do the Stranglethorn fishing race (list it on Saturday evening)
• Mighty protection potions Used by hard mode doing guilds, recipes are drops

Finally, the crown jewels, that make poor alchemists rich:

• Transmute earthsiege
• Transmute skyflare
• Transmute eternals 20hr CD
• Transmute primals 20hr CD
  
• Transmute arcanite

You might guessed it, since most alchemists are on elixir spec, a few on potions, you should be Transmutation master, and focus on these items.

--------------------

The above was the prewritten post. Now comes the ugly fact of the server:
flasks: 0 profit
transmute eternals: 1-5% profit, 10% if you consider transmute mastery
other stuff: almost no profit

The only things that had profit, before Aosoth posted anything: arcanite, frost oil, swiftness potion
There were no major protection potions and fel mana potion in the AH, so poor Aosoth could start grinding the recipes without knowing if it's profitable at all!

I tell you honestly, I've never seen anything like this. I'm used to being able to make gold from absolutely anything and took some time by the AH data to figure out what's wrong with alchemy: the herb - potion way is straightforward, the number of items limited, the quantities large. So it's a climaxed market with lot of "I got materials for free" kids (who would be better off with herbalism/skinning, selling only herbs, plus getting skins)

But I will find out how to make money of it.

OMG big shadowboltz!

I have a little warlock. We quested together with my GF, and on Sunday we reached lvl 80. The gear is blues and BoE ilvl200 epics and I needed a new talent for a simple playstyle: spamming big shadow bolts. So let's see the list of talents that give power to shadow bolt (skip the list if you want to):

• Improved Shadow Bolt 5/5 (Destro, T1): 5% damage, 5% crit
• Bane 5/5 (Destro, T1): 20% faster shadowbolts
• Cataclysm 3/3 (Destro, T2): 10% cheaper shadowbolts
  
• Ruin 5/5 (Destro, T3): OMFG shadowbolt critz awesome
• Destructive reach 2/2 (Destro, T4): shadowbolt goes further and cause -10% threat
• Intensity 2/2 (Destro, T4): They no take candle! I mean shadowbolt cast time.
• Backlash 3/3 (Destro, T5): +3% crit to all spells. Wait! Are there other spells than shadowbolt?
• Devastation 1/1 (Destro, T5): +5% crit. Ipwn!
• Shadow and flame 5/5 (Destro, T8): +20% effect from spell power
• Daemonic aegis 3/3 (Demo, T3): +30% effect of Fel armor what gives more spell power
• Master gonjuror 2/2 (Demo, T5): +300% effect for firestone (+42*3 crit rating, around 3% + crit)
• Master demonologist 5/5 (Demo, T6): +5% damage, 5% crit for shadow spells with succubus
• Demonic knowledge 3/3 (Demo, T7): about 150 spellpower
• Demonic tactics 5/5 (Demo, T8): 10% crit!
• Demonic pact 5/5 (Demo, T10): +12% spell power (for all raid, but who cares)
  
• Suppression 3/3 (Affli, T1): +3% hit. Missing is not fun!
• Shadow mastery 5/5 (Affli, T6): +15% shadow damage
• Malediction 3/3 (Affli, T8): +3% spell damage
• Death's embrace 3/3 (Affli, T9): +12% spell damage when below 35% (4% average)

Too bad that (9+10+8)*5=135 talent points and I have 71. So I have to part with some of them. The affli seems to be the weakest, let's drop them first. Also lose Demonic pact, now I'm down to Demo 40, Destro 40. Oh wait, 10 more points! The 10% crit and 170 SP seems to be equal to 20% SP effect, but the latter needs 15 points, so I'd lose supression, so I drop destro. So here I am at 3/40/28! I have

• +32% crit chance for shadow bolt
  
• double crit damage
• +11% spell damage
• +250 spell power
• 2 sec cast
• -10% threat
• -10% mana cost
  
• +3% hit

The glyphs are also obvious: shadow bolt, life tap (moar spellpower) and something random.

Now let's see the result:


Nice! Without raid buffs or consumables I have enough DPS to down Patchwerk before enrage.

However one thing must be answered: why is a silly warlock talent is a "philosophy" post on the blog? Because it's a proof that you don't have to read Elitist Jerks to set up a usable talent. All you need is the ability to read the tooltip texts and to do some basic mathematics (+, -, *, %), and you're ready to roll for Naxx25 or even Siege/Antechamber.

Of course it's far in effectivity from EJ cookie cutter specs. I don't think any Ulduar hard mode guild would take me. But little Golmag will never-ever damage below the tank spamming only shadowbolts (CoE up and life taps when needed).

Damaging below the tank is not about not having playing time. I did not farm instances or grinded daily quests for exalted reps. My gear cost 4000G, the quest rewards and the vendortrash during leveling to 80 gives that if you don't waste it.

Having 1200 DPS is not about not being interested in doing scientific research for a video game. All this talent needed was a little common sense. I wanted to spam shadowbolts, so simply searched for talents mentioning "shadowbolt", "destruction spells", "all spells", and decided between them according to numbers using the very simplest mathematics.

It's not about having good reaction time or extreme practice to juggle with 10 cooldowns. I was spamming one spell.

Making 1200-like DPS is about having spellpower gear on a hunter, AP gems for a mage, no enchants, randomly selected or blindly copied talents (ever seen a hunter on EJ-survival specs spamming arcane shot?), dumb or completely random spell rotation (facerolling).

Making 1200-like DPS is not about being a bad player. I am a bad player if I spam shadowbolts with a succubus for lousy 2.2K. It's about being a stupid, careless, lazy, useless person in the real life. Less than 1500 DPS is not "ungeared" or "beginner". It's M&S. Don't waste your precious free time with extreme lazy or hopelessly dumb people!


PS: next round of goblin apprenticeship application is closed, you'll meet the winner soon.

Morons of the week

Manu sent a screenshot of a conversation. It's long and french, so I just post the translation:

HI

I'd like to know something why do you sell your glyphs at half price ? You're crashing the market, that's bullshit they won't sell faster

I reduce my margin to take over the market, yes

you don't get it

Yeah, I must make 1000 gold per day by accident.

instead of selling at 40 you sell at 20 ...

yes.

so ?

If I lower my prices, more people will buy mine

WELL IF YOU used the same prices as those who know the game, you wouldn't make 1000 gold, but 2000

what I loose on an item, I win back in volume

No lol you don't get it people don't care about the price they even buy glyphs at 80 gold they don't care if it's 20 or 40 but I put it on sale at 40 and you put it right after me at 20 it doesn't make sense. put it at 39 they'll sell as well

ok, I see what you mean :)

but it's automatic and, I don't want to come back an hour later to find that someone is selling at 38 ^^

yeah man I always come back after you and put them 1 gold lower

lol

so don't crash the market, a glyph that used to sell at 50 is at 10 in two days

If I don't do it someone else will it moves forward margins of 0

a glyph that you sell frequently should be at 40 gold minimum I have nothing against you, we're all here to make money

fine I'll check if I have to change methods, thanks

no problem but it's guarantied, a week ago I sold (Glyph of Prayer of Healing) for 80 gold People don't care about the price see ya

Driphter sent a screenshot with another M&S mail:


Anne screenshotted some genius from trade chat:

The last idiot was screenshotted by me. It needs some explanation. My GF spotted that SoA is the daily PvP and she loves it anyway, so asked me to join. She was in with her prot warri, that can damage nearly zero, but can shoot cannons and hold up flag capturers for a minute. She was defending the last flag, after both red and purple gate was destroyed with all cannons. I was shooting from the yellow cannon platform to anyone who attacked the cannons. Suddenly she started to laugh. Not giggled like a lady but laughed as a horse. She could barely hold the mouse. I peeked to her screen and saw a catapult going to the flag, trying to kill her. It rotated and shoot fireballs everywhere but made 0 damage on her. I left the cannon and blinked there to dispose it before it draws other allies to the flag. By the time I got there, there was nothing to dispose. No, not my girlfriend destroyed it. Actually it was not destroyed at all. It was just disabled by the most pure form of stupidity I've met this week:

We won of course. Too bad I had no access to the ally /bg.

LFM alchemist

The next profession in the goblin apprentice program is alchemy. Requirements:

• be an alchemist (seems common sense, but if people would have common sense, I wouldn't be goldcapped)
• Have your professions above 400. I have no intention to work with slackers
• Play on EU, English speaking realm. I cannot start an alt on different servers
• Be online somewhere between 16:00 and 21:30
• Be low on gold. This series is not an EJ of moneymaking, it's not about elevating 5K/week to 10K. It's about getting enough to never grind again
• Apply in the name of the character (and realm) who wants to make the money. I'm not interested in other characters (except of course bankers). One of my points is that you don't need a full stable of characters with all professions to make money.
• Don't apply if you have "lol" in your character or guild name. Just don't. Also don't apply, if you have a condition that forces you to put emoticons and "lol" into every sentence.
  

Apply in mail.

PS: the profession after this will be engineering, then BS.